


just goddamn marry me already, for fuck's sake

by newsbypostcard



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Dirty Talk, Domesticity, Fluff, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:23:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7911601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you," Steve says, fingers newly tugging Bucky's underwear until it starts to slide off his hips, "want to marry me, or not?"</p><p>Bucky sighs. "You know, in some circles people would consider this interrogation under duress."</p>
            </blockquote>





	just goddamn marry me already, for fuck's sake

**Author's Note:**

> Alternately titled:  
> >> "Fuck you, pal."  
> >> "Every day, Rogers. Every goddamn day now."
> 
> This takes place in my favourite universe where Sam, Bucky, and Steve all share the responsibilities of Captain America (I wrote this in the overwhelming majority before Steve was #confirmed not-Cap), so they all have a chance at a life and quasi-retirement while also staying in the fight and feeling like they're contributing to something. Timeline is well after Civil War, maybe 2017-2018.

  


  


"Bucky."

He's been trying to slick his hair back into something that looks acceptably twenty-first century for the last seven minutes and it hasn't been going well at all, and Steve has shifted from lying on his back to lying on his stomach and watching Bucky from the nest of his arms. Bucky's frustration has been rising and he's wanted to tell Steve to find something better to do with his time than to watch him fail, but when Bucky looks over at the sound of his name, he sees the kind of starry-eyed affection that makes him think every single second since 1925 has been goddamn worth it if it means he landed here.

"What," Bucky grunts, fighting the smile threatening on his lips.

"Will you marry me?"

Bucky's hand falls immediately to his side.

" _What,_ " he replies, utterly stunned.

"Will you," Steve says, "marry me."

Bucky thinks he must be joking until he sees the clench of his fist and the pink of his cheeks, and the way his teeth worry at his lip as he waits.

A pause, then -- " _No._ "

Steve's smile widens into a grin, against the odds. "Why not?"

" _Why not?_ "

"God, I love you."

"Shut _up,_ Steve, _Jesus._ "

"Marry me."

Incredulity draws long in him. " _Why?_ "

Bucky can hear him breathing, elated and heavy, and it's like he's asthmatic again with sheer force of feeling. "You telling me you never thought about it?"

"No!"

"All those years?"

"All of those years we were hiding ourselves away because society hated us? Yeah, Steve, I totally thought about a wedding. Big one. Public. Central Park, middle of June."

"Bucky."

"Pretending it was even legal, who would've come? Your mom, maybe."

"Becca would've."

"I wouldn't have put that on her."

Bucky knows how he's being. He knows what that look means, coming from Steve.

"It's different now," he says.

"Sure, okay. Send out the invites. 'Join Captains America on their special day!'" 

"Bucky."

"'International fugitives from the law and gay longer than you, watch a national hero marry an internationally wanted mass murderer this June 18th!'"

Steve reaches out a hand to test the muscles of Bucky's thigh against his palm. "Could you at least _try_ to take the idea seriously?"

He feels the indignation draining out of him; bends to rack his fingers through Steve's hair, something gentle, meant to convey the words he's struggling to find. "I am being serious."

Steve looks up at him, eyes blue and clear. "So am I."

"I know you are. That's the concern."

"I love you, Bucky."

"Christ."

"I've wanted you to marry me since 1937."

"That's -- embarrassing."

"Why? Why would I be embarrassed by that?"

"Because all I've been doing since 1937 is letting you down."

Steve gives him a half-smile and pulls him in with the hand placed on his thigh, the other gripping at his ass through the fabric of his boxer-briefs. "No you haven't."

Steve knows that when he's soft with him that Bucky will melt, and so he uses all of his power -- pressing his lips to Bucky's hip, moving a thumb over the muscles of his leg -- to pull Bucky in. Bucky stands over him and watches the muscles of his back move where he's splayed out beneath him. He moves his fingers in Steve's hair, around the blades of his shoulders, trying to stay focused all the while.

"Tried to rid myself of you," Bucky says. "Never told you how I felt."

"You told me."

"Not properly."

"I knew."

"Not the same."

"And you stayed with me anyway, despite what you think."

"Yeah. Made it clear to you the whole time what a burden I thought you were to me."

"It was never about me. I knew that. I knew our relationship was a timebomb to you."

"Wasn't it to you?"

"No, Bucky. You were all I had."

Bucky knows it to be true. That's the worst part.

"I'm a timebomb now," Bucky tries again.

"No you're not," Steve tells him, breath gentle against the skin of his leg.

"Then our relationship is."

"No it isn't."

"You should have an out."

"I don't want an out."

"Steve."

"Quit trying to get rid of me."

It's working on him, and Steve knows it is. Every brush of Steve's skin against his is a godsend, and he's made dizzy, briefly, to be treated this way.

"Tell me you don't want to marry me," Steve mutters, reaching to bring Bucky's prosthetic hand to his lips. He kisses Bucky's knuckles, one at a time. "And I'll let it drop."

Bucky swallows at the ceiling, overwhelmed. "I can't," he drags eventually. "That doesn't mean we should."

"Yes it does. What better reason is there to get married than the fact that we want to be married to each other?"

"I just listed a minimum of five reasons."

"Okay. History of not being able to does not affect that we are able to now. Your erroneous complex about how mean you were to me makes no sense when all I remember is all you sacrificed for the sake of being with me--"

"--international fugitives, _mass murderer,_ Mister and Mister _Captain America--"_

"Why can't Captains America marry each other?"

"Because that's the most narcissistic thing I've ever heard!"

Steve stops mouthing affections along the line of his hip long enough to look up at him and grin. "Well, what do you say we pin that responsibility on Sam for that weekend so we can just be you and me."

"Yeah. Can't wait to see how quickly we get arrested after the paperwork is submitted and the alarm bells in the back of some government building start blaring."

"Let me find the legal workarounds. I know a file clerk or two, they won't turn us in."

"I love how you're talking about this like it's a done deal now."

"Do you," Steve says, fingers newly tugging Bucky's underwear until it starts to slide off his hips, "want to marry me, or not?"

Bucky sighs, trying to ignore the thrumming of his heart and his dick. "You know, in some circles people would consider this interrogation under duress."

"I love you," Steve says, nuzzling at his dick like he cannot wait to swallow it down. "Tell me you love me back."

And it's so tempting, _so_ tempting, to find the energy to stay acerbic. But the feeling that leaves him weak for Steve every time blossoms so full and so sudden in him that he finds he can't beat it back.

"I love you," Bucky mutters, raking his fingers back through Steve's hair.

"Tell me you want to marry me," Steve says throatily, pressing whole, sloppy kisses along the length of him. "You don't have to say you will. I just want to know that you want to."

"I… do."

Steve laughs, suddenly, and Bucky wrenches his head back. "I can't believe you."

"God, that was perfect."

"You tricked me."

"I asked you a question, you answered it."

"Jesus. Suck my dick already, would you?"

Steve licks his lips, pulling Bucky in closer by the backs of his thighs. "For the rest of my life, if you want me to."

"God almighty, would you give it a _rest_."

"That's gotta be tempting, Buck. Admit it."

"I'll tell you what it is," he says; but whatever he was gonna say gets lost when Steve wraps his lips around him, looking up as he does it like it's the best thing he's ever done. Bucky's left brushing the hair out of his eyes to watch the way he blisses out as Bucky thrusts his hips, rhythmic and gentle, into his mouth.

"I love you, Steve," Bucky tells him, full-throated, holding him in place. "I want to make you happy. But I need time to figure myself out."

And Steve's mouth is full of Bucky's cock but he still manages to hum his assent, his thumbs scanning gentle at Bucky's thighs, and the last bit of tension shudders out of his shoulders when Bucky steps forward and takes Steve for all he is.

  


  


It's a few hours after that before they manage to bring it up again.

"Why?" Bucky asks, sudden, looking up from a book as Steve's making them lunch.

Steve glances over to him. "Huh?"

" _Why_ do you want to marry me?"

And Steve grins so wide, so totally, that Bucky actually feels sorry for the both of them.

"Let the record show I didn't bring it up this time," Steve says.

"I'm percolating."

"Percolating. That's a word. You should put that in your vows."

Dread washes over Bucky in great crashing waves. "I hadn't thought about vows," he mutters.

"Uh-huh. I get the feeling this percolation is gonna take a while."

"You want me to _talk_ in front of _people_ about… my _feelings_?"

"That's the idea."

"Jesus. Put me back in the ice."

Steve flits his eyes in his direction. "Boy, you _really_ don't want to get married, huh."

"Ugh." Bucky rubs at his eyes. "I didn't mean that. Sorry."

But the damage is done; Steve chops vegetables in silence for a while, not looking at him. "We really don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"I told you, it's not that."

"It sounds like that to me."

"No, I… want. To."

Steve's glance is slow to find him. "Marry me, you mean."

"I want to -- be married. To you. I guess."

He blinks at him. "I'm weak-kneed. Honestly."

"I think it's the wedding part I'm stuck on."

"Usually an important part of the marriage process."

"What's wrong with a courthouse wedding?"

Steve pokes at the eggs with a spatula instead of replying.

"It's not what you want," Bucky sighs in realization.

"I'd settle for it."

"That's awful. I don't want you to settle."

Steve's smiling again, so at least that's something.

"Give me time," Bucky mutters furiously, bringing his book back up to hide his face.

"We've got nothing but," Steve says, and returns to chop his vegetables.

  


  


Steve doesn't actually elucidate on the reasons he wants to get married until days later, when Bucky's on his knees.

It's not that he's a fucking _sap_. It's not that the plainly emotional basis for Steve's _inexplicable_ desire to tie the knot gets him off, either. So it must be Steve's use of language that gets to him, or the fact of being on his knees, or -- there's gotta be _something_ about it that gets to him, anyway.

It's one of those nights when Bucky had been so on edge that Steve had taken it upon himself to break him down. He'd taken his time in piecing off the armour he carries with him all the time, to coax reactions out of Bucky's skin and his limbs until the tension had been forcibly broken out of him and made to surrender. Bucky's already come, something near-screaming that had been wrested out of him by Steve's persistence and strength; and now he is quiet of mind, supplicant, his legs folded under him and his hands at Steve's knees. 

Steve sets the pace, fingers tight in Bucky's hair, fucking his mouth on him and off like it's what he was made for. "So good for me, Bucky," Steve says, and if he can't always believe that he is _good,_ he knows, in moments like these, that he can at least be good _for Steve_.

"I want to make a promise to you," Steve mutters then, fingers clenching hard at where Bucky's hair is pulled back. "I wanna promise you that I will always make you feel like this, whenever you want me to. I want you to _know_ that I will. I want you never to doubt it."

And Bucky is floating, so it takes him a second, but when he realizes _why_ Steve is saying this -- why he's talking about _promises_ and _always_ and _never_ like they mean something -- he finds his eyes fluttering shut, his gut suddenly contracting, and weight and heat pooling back between his legs like an orgasm hasn't just been stripped out of him.

"The way you feel right now, Bucky," Steve is saying, and the cock hits the back of his throat once, twice, a third time as Steve sets his favoured pace, the authority his. "I want you to know that I will bring you here. I want you to always know that you'll be getting it from me, that it's at my hands; that I'll be the one to take care of you. I never want you to wonder about a thing again, not when it comes to me. You hearing me, Buck?"

Bucky opens his eyes and looks up at Steve as Steve is fucking into him, and Bucky sees the steely dedication to control in his eyes and loves him for it, with all that he is.

"You can stroke yourself off, if you want to," Steve tells him; and Bucky gives a moan in his chest and does as he's told. He holds Steve's eye until he breaks into shudders and his eyelids flicker closed, and Steve holds him still and fucks into him until he's coming, too. Bucky's senses are _alive,_ he feels over _whelming_ relief --

\-- then Steve's hands are half-dragging him onto the bed and wrapping himself around him and Bucky realizes, suddenly, that the value of feeling this safe may not begin and end in moments like these for everyone. Not the way it does for him.

"You want me to make a promise to you," Bucky mutters, even half-asleep as he is.

Steve goes rigid behind him, not expecting the words. "I want to promise _you_ ," he says, but there's something not right about it.

"Do you still think I'm going to leave you?" Bucky asks him, the words half-muffled by the pillow.

A pause, then -- "No." 

He is lying. "I'm not going to leave you," Bucky tells him.

And he can tell Steve believes him by the precise way his hands move, just as he can tell by the pause that follows that the reassurance isn't enough.

"I told you I'll sign the papers," Bucky adds.

"It's not about the papers," Steve replies.

And because he is very tired and he utterly does not want to get riled up again, he pulls Steve's hands in to wrap tighter against him and hopes that says enough.

  


  


"Why did you ask me _then,_ " Bucky asks him, suddenly, cornering him as they're strolling through the farmer's market they way they do every Saturday in Fall.

Steve's mind is so clearly somewhere else that Bucky thrums with anxiety in the time it takes him to figure out what he's asking, but then there's that smile again, the one he can't help, and Bucky's thrown into joy by it every time.

"I wanted you," Steve says quietly, letting himself be crowded against the side wall of a row of fruit stands. "I watched you standing there in nothing but your underwear trying to slick your hair back. I wanted nothing but to put myself in front of you and suck your dick while you did it."

"That's a stupid reason," Bucky gravels, hands holding Steve steady against the vertical wooden slat behind him.

"No it isn't."

"You don't marry a guy just because you like to suck his dick."

"You do when you've felt that way every morning since 1937. Earlier, if I'm being really honest."

"We weren't even in the same room for seventy of those years."

"You would think that would stop me, yeah, and yet. We're in _public_ ," he adds through a grin when Bucky's hand snakes under his shirt.

"Better talk fast, then. You've wanted to suck my dick _every morning since 1937_ and you haven't just gone and done it?"

"Didn't want it to get old."

"You want to _marry me_ \-- for _life_ \-- but you don't want to suck my dick every day in case it gets _old_."

"Well, once we're married I won't need that leverage anymore."

"You're withholding dick-sucking for _leverage?_ "

"I mean, yeah. What else would stop me?"

Bucky grins at him, one of those rare things wrested from sincerity, and he finds he can't even try for sexually aggressive for how fond he's feeling. He just pitches his head in Steve's shoulder and lets Steve's hands tangle in his hair. "What's the real reason?"

"You don't think I was telling the truth about how often I want to suck you off?" Steve's lips find his hairline and smile against it. "Buck. Would I really have admitted to that if it wasn't true?"

"I think you really do feel that way -- which is great, by the way, can't wait to marry you for my daily blowjobs--" and he can feel the elation spread through Steve just in the way his shoulders go suddenly slack when he laughs -- "but I know you, Rogers, and you know me. You're couching your feelings in sex because you think it's easier for me to bear." Bucky steps out of Steve's grasp and grabs at his hand instead, nodding his head in the direction of the fruit stands, entwining their fingers. "You're not wrong, but that's not what you're about. You're the little-moments guy, so why don't you tell me what you were really thinking when you asked me to goddamn marry you?"

Steve must be embarrassed or happy or all of the above, because he looks down at his shoes with pink in his cheeks. "I -- was watching you try to handle your hair."

"You said that."

"That's it." Steve shrugs and doesn't look at him. "Maybe it's an artist thing. The way the light was, and the way that you were -- the way you kept grunting every time there was a stray strand that got away from you… it's stupid."

"Not to me."

"Well, I felt like I was watching the most compelling movie of my life. You were so gorgeous, and I wanted you, I really wanted you, I really did want to get down in front of you and have you fuck into me while you carried on like nothing was different, _god_ I wanted that." And Bucky wants it now too, damn it; he may have started the farmer's market sexual tension olympics but he regrets now not having tried harder to win. "But more than that, the thing that really kept me watching you was just -- _watching you._ Watching you try something new while getting ready in the morning and have it not work out, seeing you get frustrated about it, seeing you being so effortlessly gorgeous first thing in the morning, and wanting you through all of it. I wanted to watch all of that, experience all of that, every single day for the rest of my life. I loved you so much just then."

And they're in public so they don't look at each other, they _don't_ , they just walk hand in hand at their leisurely pace and look straight ahead, as casual as anyone would be under regular circumstances.

"I love you more than I know how to say," Bucky grinds out eventually, when they've walked the whole length of the aisle; but that's as far as he gets before his throat cuts him off, and Steve looks at him but he doesn't look back, so they just keep walking forward for as long as they can until the stop of a wall compels them to turn.

  


  


"Okay," Bucky tries again, choosing a moment when he is particularly focused. "So you want me to say _vows_ about my _feelings_ in front of _people._ Can we go back to that?"

It's been weeks since he's brought it up, but Steve's grin breaks wide as though they'd never let the subject drop. He looks up from where he's sifting through files Nat picked up for them. "It'd be nice if you would."

"And the fact that I can't even properly articulate my feelings in _private_ doesn't present itself as an obstacle to you."

"Oh, it's definitely an obstacle."

"It's just not _your_ obstacle, is what you're saying."

"I'm great with feelings," Steve says mildly.

Bucky snorts. "Being less of a disaster than me doesn't automatically make you good at something, Rogers."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's how it works."

Bucky looks up at him briefly, then back down at where he's manhandling chicken into a marinade. "You still want a wedding if it means I fuck up the vows thing _in front of everyone you know_?"

"Especially then," Steve says, but after Bucky scowls at him he adds more sincerely, "Yes, Bucky. I want to marry _you,_ emotional trainwreck or otherwise."

"Get your head checked recently, Rogers?"

"Oh, don't think I'm happy about it."

"You wish you _didn't_ have to marry me, don't you?"

"Absolutely."

"But you do have to, for some reason."

"Yeah." Steve nods at him, forcing his mouth into a thin line. "For some reason. Can't figure it out."

Bucky shakes his head. "Sucks for you."

"You're telling me."

"Then you're getting a disaster, Rogers, if that's how it is."

"That's how it is."

"Great. Disaster vows, coming right up."

"Yeah? Right now?"

"Right now. 'Marrying you is -- well it ought to be -- like a long marinade.'"

Steve's laughter is hacking and immediate, the kind that results when he's tried too long to box it away. "'Well I mean, I sure hope it is gonna be anyhow'," Bucky continues in the midst of it, "'or at least what I'm trying to say is -- well, you're a chicken breast, and I'm -- well, you know how marinade is. Thick, kind of cloying, kind of inclined to drown its unlucky standers-by…'"

"Unbelievable."

"'But you know, if I drown you long enough, well maybe just maybe we'll turn out the other side perfectly infused, you know, like a well-seasoned hunk of meat. Yeah. You're like a well-seasoned--'"

"I'll never be able to face anyone I have ever met again," Steve mutters in sudden realization. "Well, there's always deep cover."

"Yeah, but you'll still be stuck with me in deep cover, legally."

"Like a long marinade."

Bucky smiles down at what he's doing, but is too preoccupied with his chicken prep to realize that Steve is still staring at him, half his mouth turned up fond.

"Oh, Jesus," Bucky mutters when he notices, and he puts on that false annoyance he always keeps at the ready. "Not this again."

"Marry me," Steve says only, his voice tucked away in overt adoration.

Bucky's nearly bowled over by it with incredulity, but then he says, "Yeah," so softly, "yeah, Jesus Christ, I'll marry you already. You _persistent_ asshole."

Steve seems not to know what to do with all of that, for a second. "You … will?"

"Big wedding. Central Park in the middle of June, if you want. I can't believe my bullshit marinade vows made you want to marry me even _more_ , but--"

The taunt dies in his throat when he raises his head and sees Steve looking at him with eyebrows steepled so high, so hopeful, that he can't stand to stay broken from sincerity.

"I'll marry you, Steve. If you're _really_ sure that it's me you want to be married to."

"I am," says Steve.

"Then okay. You're nuts, but okay."

"Okay."

"Okay. Glad we got that sorted out. Now go set a date and leave me alone."

And when Steve pulls him around by the arm and kisses him, hands hot against his face, Bucky at least waits ten shuddering seconds before wiping his marinade-covered hands thoroughly and pointedly all over Steve's shirt.

"Still time to get out, Rogers," Bucky mutters throatily against Steve's lips when he frowns and drops his gaze.

"Joke's on you," he says, "this shirt is yours"; and he laughingly catches Bucky's hands in the air before they threaten to bury in his hair instead and kisses him again, for an absurdly long time.

  


  


They get married in public, in Central Park, in the middle of June.

They don't do any of that walking down the aisle shit. They get dressed together and go to the venue together and they greet guests together and they drink. They make dry jokes and wisecracks to each other the entire time, because neither of them would have it any other way. When the justice of the peace shows up they walk up to where Steve wants them to get married, under some still-budding tree -- one that's struggling under the weight of a long and harsh winter, but that's breaking finally free under the keen springtime sun.

It's not particularly warm but the sun is shining, and Steve is clean-shaven and he is beautiful. He's looking at Bucky through eyelashes somehow lit aglow, and Bucky's breath starts hanging in his chest the second the justice of the peace starts talking. 

It's a peculiar silence, the one that falls, the wind in the trees as the best indicator that time is passing. Bucky holds Steve's eye; can't help but break into a smile when Steve reaches out and takes his hand, Sam and Nat by their sides.

"You got this," Steve says under his breath, smiling something easy. "Breathe."

Bucky breathes. "I have to let go of your hand to get the paper out of my pocket."

"That is a dilemma. Do you want to let go?"

"No."

"Do you want help?"

"I have another arm."

"Then I fail to see the problem."

"I have to unfold it and I don't want to drop it trying with one hand."

"I can help with that. Quit procrastinating."

Bucky shuts his eyes and breathes, just breathes, then he fishes the folded paper out of his pocket and moves it toward Steve with a shaking fingers. He fans the folded page in his fingers, trying to make it easier to unfurl. Somehow, they do it, Bucky's right hand still entangled with Steve's left, and if there's a smattering of laughter through the audience it's far from mocking.

Bucky smiles, shy and terrified, as he looks down at his notes in front of him. "I asked to read first," he tells the page, the tremor obvious in his voice, "and on the condition I get to pretend like no one else is here." He brings his paper close to his mouth so he can clear his throat against it and offer a fragmented facsimile of a laugh along with everyone else. "So sorry in advance if I don't fucking look at any of you sadists gathered here today to watch me make an ass out of myself." 

Another laugh, out of Steve and from the small crowd gathered just beyond the realm of reality -- none of his concern, for no one here is his concern except for Steve. "I -- had a hard time writing this thing. I knew I would. I told you about it while marinating chicken, which you know because you were there. I pretended like I hadn't started trying to write these yet because we'd been talking about getting married for a while, but I was really scared to. You didn't want a courthouse wedding, you wanted this, and I tried to tell you I was bad at this, but you only asked me to marry you again -- he asked me at least five times, by the way--" he says as an aside; more laughter, still warm, far in the distance, really barely even here-- "so I sat down and I made it happen, but I'm bad at expressing myself, so this is gonna be the best I can do."

Bucky looks up, then, his left hand still shaking while his other grows sweaty grasped against Steve's. But Steve's just looking at him like he's the best thing he's ever seen, full of the same inexplicable awe and wonder he always beheld.

"I have a few confessions to make," Bucky says. "Nothing illegal; nothing the authorities don't already want me for worse, anyway." He's baited into a reluctant smile by Steve's incredulous eyebrows. "The first confession is that I, at some point, started wanting this too. This gathering is... objectively very stupid, I just want to be clear that I really think that--" Steve grins broader amidst another smattering of laughter from somewhere beyond him -- "but I, uh… I really wanted it. With you. Because, um -- where we come from, we wouldn't have gotten something like this. We didn't have this opportunity. And you asked me -- the _first_ time you asked me to marry you -- you said, 'didn't you ever want this?' and I lied to you and I said that I never did. But that's not true at all. 

"That's my second confession. I almost asked you to marry me twice -- back when we fell in love the first time, in the thirties, even though we weren't allowed any of it back then. Not the love, not the marriage. Not what we had. I still wanted all of it."

Steve's stopped smiling, now, but he hasn't stopped staring at Bucky in that piercing way, the way that inspires some strength within him, so he takes a breath and barrels on. "The first time I almost asked you to marry me was in 1939, when you finished that semester of art school and you wound up top of the class, and you came home in a rush and said all those things about how you were gonna be an illustrator and you finally understood why you'd been born the way you had. And I was just -- so fucking elated that you saw your own damn worth. That you understood what I saw in you and you finally understood it within yourself. I wanted to tie myself to that enthusiasm somehow, because you always had it in spades, Steve, like some divined counter to my cynicism that I never quite understood outta you." 

Bucky looks up at Steve and manages a shaky smile, but oh, _god_ , the way Steve's staring at him. "The second time was a year and a bit later, when my conscription notice came. Because I definitely didn't want to leave and I sure as shit didn't want you to feel alone when I did. I wanted to make you a promise, that I'd come back. But I didn't think I'd be able to follow through with it and I thought I was an idiot for wanting it besides. Thinking back maybe it wasn't two times I almost asked you to marry me, instead it might've been one big time spread out over all that, right up until I left for war and we... stopped, and--" 

He looks up at Steve and sees some devastation in him. "God, I hope I didn't make a mistake in telling you all that."

Steve swallows and he says, "No," but the word barely clears his lips.

Bucky nods and swallows, forcing his eyes back down onto the page. "Well, all I'm trying to say is that I've wanted this with you for a long time, but that I've spent a lot of time talking myself out of it because I thought I was stupid for wanting it. And now that we're here I'm still shit terrified, for all the same reasons. You're not the same you were back then and god knows I'm not either; my memory's worse and my nerves are shot and I hate most things on this earth vocally and without restraint." 

A smattering of nervous laughter, breaking the tension, and Steve's mouth is curving in something Bucky doesn't have time to analyze; but it's not regret, at least, he can figure out that much. "But you still step forward like you're led by something beyond yourself, and every time you do, these days, you look behind you like you're making sure I'm still there to back you up. And I've gotta say I like that a lot better than the days you never took even a second to look behind you at all. But for a long time I thought that look behind you was doubt. 

"I still don't really understand it all that well, why you'd want _me_ of all people watching your back. But you do, and eventually I figured that out, based on the way you smiled after you saw me there like I was the best thing you'd ever seen. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to tell you that I'd follow you into any goddamn thing these days, Rogers, no matter how much any of it terrifies me, for as long as you want me. These vows proof of concept."

He swallows hard and forces a breath into his chest, and he looks up at Steve and takes strength from him, from the look in his eye that brings him more confidence than he knows how to manage. "And um -- while I was busy being as terrified in 2017 as I was before the war about whether I was making you a promise I wasn't gonna keep, I tried to talk myself out of this whole marriage deal by figuring that we do all the stupid shit married couples do already. We go to the farmer's market every goddamn Saturday like the centenarians we are; sometimes we barely talk for days at a time, though we still waste hours away. We wear each other's clothes around the house, we have unnecessarily long discussions about weather patterns like it's remotely fucking interesting. I didn't really see how a piece of paper made a goddamn difference in any of that, and I kinda still don't, but the reasoning backfired on me because then you started talking about promises, and I started wanting to _promise_ you shit all over again. That I would keep going to farmer's markets with you. That I would keep wearing out all your shirtsleeves with my stupid metal arm."

Steve's smiling big again and he's laughing, thank god, even if it is through a mist that Bucky wants to kiss away. "So I want you to know, on top of the farmer's market and sleeve thing, that I also promise to follow you into whatever hellfire you decide to dive into headfirst into next, and that I won't turn away from things I'm afraid of, like this, just because I'm afraid of them. And I promise to marinade chicken with that persistence that for some reason irritates you, and I want you to know more than that how bad I want this whole fucking thing." He swallows and looks down at his page, emotion choking him. "I'm just as excited to marry you now as I was when I first thought it. I've wanted to be married to you for eighty fucking years, so frankly it's about damn time you wore me down." 

Bucky pauses to breathe laughter along with everyone else because suddenly he's dying. The hand clutching at Steve's has to redouble at his forearm, because for all he's seen and been through, this is easily the hardest thing he's ever done. "I've told you before that I love you beyond words and I meant it. I meant it then and I mean it now, but I hope this starts to -- I hate this fucking tremor in my voice, Jesus Christ, how does anyone ever talk about their feelings?" And Steve's crying at him now in giant fucking tears, so Bucky just grabs at him and pulls him in, vows left to float to the ground. "Just goddamn marry me already, Steve, for fuck's sake. That's all I want, and if you've ever loved me a day you'll just do it already and let me shut my damn mouth as nature fucking intended."

And Steve must really love him, Bucky decides, because he leans in and kisses him; and Bucky is lit aflame, he is hot with adrenaline, he's left clinging to Steve with tremoring limbs.

"I, uh… Jesus," Steve mutters, and dabs at the space under his eyes with the back of his hand as he steps back, still holding fast to Bucky's arm. "Bucky said he was gonna half-ass that whole thing, and then he showed up and nailed it--" and _god_ this is an easy crowd because they're laughing again -- "so I kinda, you know, half-assed my own vows, and now I'm not even sure what to say." 

"Bullshit," Bucky mutters. "Do you even have a paper?"

"Nope."

"You're out of your goddamn mind, have I told you that lately?"

But Steve only grins at him and squares his shoulders as he clears his throat. "The day I fell in love with you," he announces with infuriating clarity, "you'd decided to become a steelworker."

"Oh, Christ," he mutters, rubbing a hand furiously at his eyes and grinning.

"You told me everything there was to know about steel in 1933, all at once, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was the same voice you used when you were trying to impress a date, actually. And you were using it on me and I was trying to figure out why you were using your impress-a-date voice on _me,_ skinny Steve Rogers, while you were talking about _steel,_ but I didn't want to interrupt you either because I wanted to hear you keep talking forever. And now I guess I get to, but right now I want you to shut up and listen without making any smart remarks, for once. Would you?"

And it takes him a second, it takes Bucky a second to find the will to do anything other than smile at the ground, but then he pushes his jaw forward and looks up at Steve as though it's 1940 and he still has a brave face to put on.

"So talk already," he says, low in his throat, lifting his chin to look at Steve with unfailing challenge; and Steve holds his eye and lets the smile crack slowly open on his face.

"I can't wait to be married to you," he mutters, and means it.

And Bucky takes a fortifying breath and says, "I can't either"; and god help them both, because he means it, too.

  


**Author's Note:**

> (Edit Sept 3/16): [optional addenda](http://newsbypostcard.tumblr.com/post/149783945776)


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